Source: Barcroft Media / Getty
It’s no secret that
Rep. Ayanna Pressley is one brave woman.
Back in 2018, she ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress
against a popular incumbent and won, which led to her calling for the
impeachment of President Trump, which then led her to defend herself
when the president tweeted that she and other members of Congress should go back to where she came from.
But for a Black woman, to reveal this one thing must have been one of the hardest things she’s ever done.
In an exclusive video for The Root, the freshman Democrat told the world that she has alopecia and showed off her beautiful bald head.
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“In the fall, when I was getting my hair retwisted, is the first time that I was made aware that I had some patches,” Pressley said. “From there, it accelerated very quickly and got to the point where she was “ waking up every morning to sinkfuls of hair.”
“Every night I was employing all the tools that I had been schooled and trained in throughout my life as a Black woman because I thought that I could stop this. I wrapped my hair. I wore a bonnet. I slept on a silk pillowcase,” she added.
“And yet and still every morning, which I faced with dread, I did not want to go to sleep because I did not want the morning to come where I would remove this bonnet and my wrap and be met with more hair in the sink and an image in the mirror of a person who increasingly felt like a stranger to me,” she continued.
Pressley said that the “last little bit” of her hair fell out the day before the House voted to impeach Trump last month.
“I was completely bald. And in a matter of hours, was going to have to walk into the floor [of] the House Chamber … and cast a vote in support of articles of impeachment,” she recalled.
“And so I didn’t have the luxury of mourning what felt like the loss of a limb. It was a moment of transformation, not of my choosing. But I knew the moment demanded that I stand in it and that I lean in.”
“And I exited the floor as soon as I could and I hid in a bathroom stall. I felt naked, exposed, vulnerable. I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed. I felt betrayed.”
Luckily, her journey has gotten better, she says, stressing that ” I’m making progress every day. And that’s why I’m doing this today.”
“It’s about self-agency. It’s about power. It’s about acceptance. It’s so interesting to me that right now on this journey, what I feel the most unlike myself is when I am wearing a wig. So I think that means I’m on my way.”
She jokes that she’s also given her wigs names after
Michelle Obama and even “OG.”
On Twitter, Pressley wrote, “
Today, I am sharing my #hairloss journey to create space and to create community for those of us who have had complicated relationships with our hair. This was not easy, but vulnerability rarely is.”
Listen, as Black women do have an extremely complicated relationship with our hair. Whether we should or not, so much of our identity, self-worth, and femininity are wrapped up in our crown and glory. Often times, we allow it to take over our lives and we have to let that go.
There’s something incredibly empowering seeing Pressley open up and be so brave about what she is going through. It’s definitely making me rethink I view my own hair and how much value I place on it.
While, I have always adored Pressley, but today made me love her even more. Clearly, I wasn’t alone. Take a look at all the love she got on Twitter for her act of bravery:
